


You're a Real Boy Now, Pinocchio

by Kansas42



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anchors, Anger Management, Angst and Humor, BAMF Stiles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire, Gen, Insomnia, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post Nogitsune, Post-Episode: s03e24 The Divine Move, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleepwalking, Spark Stiles, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kansas42/pseuds/Kansas42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, the thing about being regurgitated back into existence? No one has ANY idea what to do with that. (Or the one when Stiles finds out there are some unexpected consequences from splitting yourself in half from a Nogitsune.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everyone Has It

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here goes. First Teen Wolf fic. (Man, this show has eaten my BRAIN.)

So, the thing about being regurgitated back into existence? Nobody has _any_ idea what to do with that, like no one, not even Deaton, who’s supposed to know all this weird shit, who temporarily sacrifices teenagers in ice baths and talks about sparks and beliefs; Deaton, who flew to Japan and paralyzed a _fucking yakuza_ \-- even Deaton doesn’t know what to say to Stiles. He just smiles enigmatically and murmurs some kind of proverb and whisks away somewhere when no one’s looking, like Batman. Which, so wrong -- he’s still more like Obi-Wan than Batman, assuming Obi-Wan took care of sick dogs, and was shifty as all hell. Stiles still doesn’t fully trust Deaton, not in the long run. _He poisoned us. No, he SAVED us. No, he saved ME_.

Yeah. Sometimes, Stiles thinks in plural now. It scares the hell out of him.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

#

On the upside, Stiles is, like, 80% sure he’s awake right now. Maybe 75%. Certainly no worse than 60. Sometimes -- okay, daily -- he has to count his fingers, and yeah, he still has pretty freaky nightmares, but they aren’t, like, nightmares within nightmares _within_ nightmares, so. That’s good.

He still sleepwalks sometimes, although -- thanks to his dad’s security measures -- he never gets very far. One night he dreams the Nogitsune is back, that he’s dragging Stiles through the woods, only the grass is dark and wet with blood, and it’s Lydia’s blood and Scott’s and Derek’s. Or, it’s not yet, but it will be -- it will be if Stiles gets any of the Nogitsune’s riddles wrong. The fox will creep back inside his brain and kill everyone he loves if he fumbles even one answer, if he makes even one mistake.

Stiles wakes up in the shower, fully dressed and shivering, hands frantically rubbing down his arms and chest, trying to scrub the phantom blood away. “Ajar,” he’s muttering, “ajar ajar ajar,” and then he’s falling out of the bathtub with all his usual grace and dignity.

The loud thunk of Stiles hitting the floor is probably what wakes his dad, who, let’s face it, hasn’t been sleeping so hot these days, either. “It’s cool,” Stiles says into the bathroom mat as his dad cautiously kneels beside him. “I just . . . really wanted to inspect these floors. Someone should probably clean them. Like, that’s a thing we could try sometime.”

He’s still shaking and, also, crying a little, so he probably doesn’t come off quite as nonchalant as he’d hoped.

“Oh, kid,” Dad says and hugs him close, even though Stiles is still wet and trying to push him away. Dad squeezes him tighter and then helps him back up. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Dad waits for Stiles to get into some dry pajamas and then actually _tucks him in_ like he’s a little kid who’s scared of the dark. Only Dad’s scared too, Stiles knows; Dad looks at him sometimes like he’s expecting his son to disappear, like Stiles might just unravel into flesh covered bandages and melt into the floor. (And screw Scott, for telling his dad shit that he didn’t need to know, that he never, ever needed to know.)

Stiles doesn’t know what to do with that look, can’t figure out what to say, because sometimes he thinks that’s probably exactly what’s going to happen.

#

Cause here’s the thing: he loves Scott’s mom, right, she’s _awesome_ ; she totally kicks ass, and he absolutely would not question her medical know-how on any kind of non-supernatural illness or injury, but, well, rebirth ala bandage puke . . . yeah, he’s going to take a leap and say that probably wasn’t covered in nursing school. So, okay, Melissa diagnosed him as a real person because he had, like, normal pupil reactions and a pulse and stuff, but let’s be real here: nobody has any idea if he’s the same Stiles he’d been before, if this is really his body or a duplicate or what. ‘Person’ might not be the word that best describes him existentially these days.

_More you than the Nogitsune_ , Kira’s mother had said, like she came from the Vague School of Vaguery, like she’d been the damn salutatorian there. (Deaton, obviously, had been the valedictorian. Oh, and Miss Morell, too -- well, maybe _she_ had been the salutatorian, and Kira’s mom had been the student body president or something. Class treasurer. School mascot, something.)

Stiles is, at least, pretty sure that he’s not dying anymore. That’s good. He’s always been a huge fan of not dying. And the pain’s gone away since the Nogitsune crumpled into ash, and that’s a big bonus too, but he’s still pretty pale, even for him, and he’s cold a lot of the time, like, pretty much all of the time. He feels off balance, too, in some strange, indefinable way, like he’s missing some invisible piece of himself that was torn away when the Nogitsune split Stiles in half.

Maybe that’s why he sometimes thinks ‘we’ instead of ‘I,’ like it’s his subconscious’s sad, twisted way of trying to . . . fill the void. (The void the void left behind. It sounds like the start of the riddle. The thought makes him sick.) Or maybe the Nogitsune isn’t really all gone, or maybe he was never really gone at all, or maybe Stiles is just going _fucking nuts_.

It’s a real possibility. He’d sign up to see the guidance counselor, but he doesn’t want a special parent-teacher conference or, worse, a needle of pancuronium bromide in his arm.

#

Stiles does go back to school, though, two weeks after everything goes down. He wishes he could say it had been an easy going two weeks, full of relaxation and some freaking well-earned tranquility, but apparently, Evil, Pyromaniac, and Previously Assumed Dead Kate has come back as some kind of Evil, Pyromaniac, Blue-Faced Werejaguar? Or something? Whatever, it’s not good. Stiles has only seen Derek once, since it happened, and he’d been even more monosyllabic than usual -- which is not, like, a thing that should be humanely possible. And he’d had this look, too, like he was totally freaking out and trying not to show it, which is a look Stiles is totally used to seeing on his own face in the mirror, but which looks _completely fucking wrong_ on Scary Sourwolf Derek Hale.

Physically, at least, Derek’s fine -- he got shot, a little, but Deaton fixed him right up. Mostly, Kate’s just fucking with him, leaving him creepy messages at his loft and setting fires all around town. And okay, fine, they technically don’t _know_ she’s the one setting fires, but seriously, unless _dragons_ are a thing that actually exist, it’s a good guess that the fire department’s sudden and overwhelming workload is Kate Argent’s doing. Especially since one of those fires had swept through part of the Preserve and burnt down what little had actually remained of the already crispy Hale house.

Man. Dragons better not exist. Like, it would be kind of awesome, actually, and okay, Stiles has totally daydreamed of riding on one since he was, like, five, but yeah, he absolutely does _not_ want to fight a dragon, like, ever. That is not a thing that can happen. He can’t even --

“Stiles?”

Stiles glances up at Scott, who’s looking at him expectantly. Right. Right, they’re at lunch, and Stiles is supposed to be brainstorming about what Kate’s next move might be, not thinking about dragons. He _may_ have forgotten to take his Adderall this morning. Whoops.

“Sorry, man,” Stiles says, and offers one of his Reeses Peanut Butter Cups in apology for zoning out.

#

Truth is, Stiles has been a totally shitty friend to Scott for the last two weeks. Scott’s been trying to catch him up on everything that’s happened, and Stiles has been trying to focus, he has, but there’s just -- there’s just, like, a LOT to take in, and he kind of already has his own stuff that he isn’t sure how to deal with yet. Like, dude, he had SEX, which, hey, that was pretty awesome -- it is basically the best, not being a virgin anymore -- but, well, he also had sex with a werecoyote in the basement of an insane asylum, and that’s just . . . it’s not bad, exactly, it’s just a lot to wrap his strung-out little brain around, and that’s still only the tip of the very long and very scary iceberg of weird shit that encompasses his life these days.

But Scott’s had it pretty hard too, what with Allison -- but it hurts, it hurts Stiles to even think about Allison. If the Nogitsune hadn’t burrowed into his brain, if Stiles hadn’t let him do it --

_This is exactly what we were talking about, Stiles. This isn’t about our guilt right now; it’s about Scott. Scott needs us now_.

_Scott needs ME now, you stupid phantom brain monster_.

Scott . . . he’s trying to push through it, his grief over Allison, but Stiles can see how it’s tearing him up inside, how much he’s struggling without her. Back when Scott first became an Alpha, when he was afraid of losing control, Melissa had told him to be his own anchor . . . and that was okay, when Allison was still alive and just macking on Issac, but now . . .

And now Issac’s gone too, off with Chris Argent for godknowswhere doing godknowswhat -- and that’s just not at all what Scott needs right now, people who keep leaving him behind. His dad’s apparently sticking around, at least for a little while, but Stiles doubts that it’ll last and he won’t be particularly sorry to see him go, either, and he doesn’t care; he just doesn’t care that it’s selfish.

But Scott deserves so much more than that; he deserves more than selfish, broken Stiles right now. Scott keeps asking him, _hey, how are you doing_ , and _you’re going to be okay, right_ , and Stiles isn’t going to tell him the truth, isn’t going to tell him about the cold or the somnambulism or _I don’t think I’m me anymore, Scotty, I don’t think I’m REAL_ because Scott’s got too much on his plate right now, and he doesn’t need to be dealing with this too.

_We won’t be the reason Scott starts crying. We won’t give Lydia anything else to scream about or Melissa anything else to be scared of. We won’t be the reason Dad starts drinking again, like he used to_.

Seriously. _Fuck_ Rafe McCall.

#

Stiles keeps it together, basically, mostly, almost together, for another week and a half.

Like, okay -- things aren’t _great_. Kate’s still starting fires, which miraculously haven’t killed anyone yet, and Stiles isn’t getting particularly far in his research on werejaguars, probably because he’s averaging about three to four hours of sleep a night. He still dreams of terrible things and wakes up screaming -- but whatever, he’s got this. He’s basically doing fine.

And then Stiles is at school, walking across the quad with Scott, and he’s trying to be supportive best friend guy -- cause Scott’s feeling all guilty, stupidly guilty, about his relationship with Kira, you know, now that Allison’s dead and gone. Stiles says the kind of stuff he sometimes overhears people saying to his Dad, stuff like _it’s okay to move on_ and _she wouldn’t want you to be unhappy forever_. Crap like that. He isn’t sure any of it really helps -- it doesn’t seem to help his dad, anyway, if his lack of a dating resume for the past eight years is any indication -- but it’s, like, all Stiles has to offer. And then he looks down at the ground; he doesn’t even remember why, he just looks, and his feet kind of stutter over each other and his heart just stops.

Because Scott has a shadow, right, the way people do, a long, dark thing that stretches silently behind him, and Stiles . . .

Stiles has nothing.

It can’t be new, he thinks distantly, not, like, this morning new. It must be what’s been missing, that strange absence he hasn’t been able to place. Which, that seems ridiculous, right, that he hasn’t noticed his lack of shadow for nearly a month? But it’s the only thing that makes sense and, really, how often are you looking for your own shadow, anyway? When do you bother looking at something that everyone has but no one can lose?

“Dude? Stiles?”

Stiles has a panic attack right then and there.

It’s cool because it’s been a whole two days since everyone at school has openly stared at him -- cause he’s the new Lydia now, the latest kid at Beacon Hills High to go completely crazy. They don’t think he’s a killer at least, because apparently no one saw his creepier and totally lesser half at the hospital, probably because anyone who _did_ see him there is already dead -- but they do know about the panic attacks and the disappearances and the sleepwalking, and some asshole reminded everyone last week, hey, didn’t that kid’s mom go crazy, too, like, way back forever ago? None of that’s very important right now, of course, because Stiles can’t breathe, and Scott’s saying something, maybe yelling something, but who could make out words over the dull roar in his ears and the sound of his heart, knocking furiously against his chest?

Stiles stumbles to his knees, fingers clawing at his shirt, and Scott kneels in front of him, hands up, fingers ticking down one at a time. _Count with me_ , he’s probably trying to say. _This isn’t a dream, man, come on_. And Stiles doesn’t know, he doesn’t know if Scott’s right, or if he even _wants_ Scott to be right, if it would be better if everything was just a dream, if maybe his whole life has just been one long, horrible dream.

The trees around them are on fire. Stiles notices it right before passing out.


	2. But Apparently I Lost It

Stiles wakes up on a cold table that’s usually occupied with sick dogs. On the upside, he hasn’t been tied down to the table, and no one’s holding any needles.

It’s important to focus on the positives in life.

He sits up. About half the Scooby Gang is here -- Scott and Deaton, who aren’t surprising, and Melissa and Derek, who kind of are. Stiles waves half-heartedly at them. No one waves back, although Scott -- best friend and True Alpha that he is -- does take a step forward.

“How are you feeling?” Scott asks cautiously, oh-so-cautiously.

_Oh, you know. We’re probably losing our freaking minds, AGAIN_.

“Cold,” Stiles answers, which isn’t a lie. He lifts his arms to wrap around his stomach and sees little yellow dog hairs sticking to his elbows. “Also shaggy. But I can, like, breathe, so.” In direct opposition to that statement, his breath hitches in his throat a little when he asks, “So, what am I?”

Scott frowns. “What do you mean?”

Stiles stares down at the floor. He doesn’t want to look at his best friend’s puppy eyes. He doesn’t want to look at any of them. “I’m not human anymore,” he whispers. “I’m . . . I don’t know what I am.”

He hears footsteps, but he doesn’t look up, just knuckles the tears off his cheeks and bites nervously at his lip. “Dude,” Scott says, putting his hands on Stiles’s shoulders, squeezing tight. “Why would you even say that?”

“Didn’t you see?”

“The fire? Deaton says -- ”

Stiles’s head snaps up. “The _shadow_ ,” he says, staring at Scott. “You think I -- you think it was _me_ , that, that I -- ”

But he remembers now, he remembers the trees at the school, how the leaves had burst into flames as Stiles had tried to catch his breath, and they can’t exactly blame that on Kate, right? Kate hadn’t been anywhere near the school, probably. And if she hadn’t set that fire, she almost certainly hadn’t set any of the others. Stiles had just assumed -- he _assumed_ , like being wrong would just make an ass out of ‘u’ and ‘me,’ like people didn’t die horrible, bloody deaths in Beacon Hills for _assuming_ things. And this . . . this makes so much more sense because all the fires had happened at night, right, during those rare few hours when Stiles had actually managed to sleep, and the night the Hale house burned down, again, he thinks that was the night he dreamt of the Nogitsune dragging him through the Preserve, through all the bloody grass, and . . . Christ, Christ, it had been Stiles all along --

“Stiles, calm down,” Scott’s saying. “ _Stiles_.”

Stiles sucks in a breath and squeezes his eyes shut.

He’s close to having a handle on it, his breathing, like, he’s almost, almost there, when Derek -- impatient as always -- demands, “What did you mean, a shadow?’

“Well,” Stiles says, eyes still closed. “It’s this thing people have -- I believe dictionary.com defines it as a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and -- ”

A growl. “Stiles.”

Stiles grins. Somehow, being an asshole to Derek makes him feel, like, at least 6% better. He opens his eyes and looks at Scott. “Remember when we wanted to grow up and become travelling shadow puppeteers?”

“I remember when _you_ wanted to do that,” Scott says, smiling a little, even though he’s obviously still worried.

“Whatever, you know my plans were the best. Come on.” And he hops off the table on shaky legs and walks towards the wall, indicating to the others that they should probably follow, if they want to know what the hell he’s talking about. To Scott, he says, “What was your go-to shadow animal again? Manly rabbit?”

“Stiles . . .”

“Come on, let me see Bunnicula.”

Scott stares at him for a minute but finally lifts his hands and makes a really terrible shadow rabbit. He’d honestly never been very good at this -- if they _had_ become travelling shadow puppeteers, Stiles would totally have had to carry the whole show. Which, that’s okay. That’s the kind of thing you do for your best friend. Except Stiles can’t do it now because when he lifts his hands to make a bat, nothing appears on the wall.

There’s a second, the briefest, most wonderful second, where Stiles thinks maybe he does have a shadow after all, that maybe he’s just not seeing it because he’s gone crazy, and that has to be better, doesn’t it? That has to be better than the alternative? But he turns and sees it, the expression on Scott’s face, and he knows. He knows.

Everyone has it, but no one can lose it. 

No one real, anyway.

“It’s funny,” Stiles says. “All this time, I’ve been thinking I’m like Pinocchio, right, cause I just wanna be a real boy and all, but it turns out -- it turns out I’ve been Peter Pan all along.” And he starts laughing, laughing and laughing until he cries, until he’s back on his ass again and his chest aches with just how _funny_ everything is. 

It’s possible that no one else thinks this is funny, though, because he hears someone swearing and the frantic movement of feet, and Scott’s reminding Stiles to calm down and trying to hug him, trying to hold him down, but he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t. He just wants to not be falling apart ALL of the time.

At least he’s finally warm, for once. Stiles should be clammy and cold, but he’s not -- he actually feels like there’s something other than ice running through his veins. He notices, distantly, that Deaton is using a fire extinguisher on the far wall, which maybe explains the heat. Oh God, he’s done it again, hasn’t he, he’s done it _again_ , he --

“Kiddo.”

“Mom, don’t -- ”

“It’s okay,” Melissa says. Melissa -- she’s kneeling in front of Stiles now, tentatively reaching for his hands. She’s scared of him, that’s obvious, and he hates it; he hates that he can scare someone as fearless and strong as Scott’s mom, who's always been good to him, who's never pushed her son to make less loud, annoying friends. (Seriously, seriously. _Fuck_ Rafe McCall.) “You’ve gotta breathe for me, kiddo, come on. We’ve been here before -- you can do this. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Come on. Just breathe.”

He breathes. He breathes and it hurts all down his chest, and he’s light-headed and exhausted, but he locks eyes with her and does it anyway. “We’re sorry we scared you,” Stiles whispers, when he can, and it takes him a little too long to realize why she’s suddenly let go of him. 

When it clicks, what he’s just said, Stiles gives her a watery smile. “And that I still do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I scare you, Melissa.”

Melissa stares at him for a minute and then decisively, almost defiantly, takes his hand again. “Doc,” she says, never taking her eyes off Stiles. “If you know what’s going on, it might be a good time to speak up.”

Deaton sets the fire extinguisher down. Apparently, the animal clinic is not going to burn down, at least, not today.

“As a matter of fact,” Deaton says, “I think I do.”


	3. Your First Divine Move

“Stiles, you’ve always had a certain potential,” Deaton says, which, crap. Whenever anyone is talking about ‘Stiles’ and ‘potential,’ it’s almost always in accordance with the words 'just needs to focus' and ‘not living up to’. “You seem to have a natural aptitude for . . . well, let’s simplify and call it magic.”

“A spark,” Stiles says dully. He’s back up on the exam table, drinking a bottle of water and kicking his heels ruthlessly behind him. Scott’s sitting by his side, occasionally bumping lightly into his shoulder. Grounding Stiles, or trying to.

Deaton nods. “Just so.”

“And you were going to, I don’t know, TELL ME ABOUT THIS when exactly?”

Scott bumps his shoulder again.

“Some things cannot be told,” Deaton says. He seems totally unfazed by Stiles’s temper, which is either impressive or disconcerting, considering that Stiles just set fire to the clinic ten minutes ago with his brain. “Some things have to be discovered in their own time.”

“Okay, just so you know? I’m this close to punching you in your enigmatic, Jedi face right now.”

Deaton smiles. “When you opened the door in your mind, the Nogitsune was able to sneak in -- ”

“I remember, thank you -- ”

“But opening that door also ignited the spark inside of you into something, well. Bigger.”

“Bigger,” Stiles says flatly, and is vaguely annoyed when Derek says it with him in the exact same tone.

“Bigger,” Deaton confirms for both of them. “It’s what ultimately allowed you to split yourself from the Nogitsune.” 

Stiles frowns. “Uh-uh, no. No, that wasn’t . . . Kira’s mom, she said that was the Nogitsune’s call. She said it was a powerful move, very specifically, _his_ move.”

Deaton shakes his head. “I don’t believe it was. The fox didn’t expel you, Stiles. You _escaped_ from him, and in doing so, you had to hurt yourself quite badly in the process. In a very real way, you had to split yourself in half, and doing something like that comes with consequences. You lost some things. Some of them you recovered; others, you gained.”

Stiles stares at him because, seriously. What is his LIFE? 

“So, I lost my shadow,” Stiles says, “and I recovered my, uh . . . strength? Or at least enough health bars to keep from going into Game Over. And then I gained, what? PTSD, and some crazy adrenaline-fueled pyrokinesis? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Essentially,” Deaton says. “Yes.”

Stiles glances at the others. “Anyone else want a do-over on, like, the whole last two years?”

Scott raises his hand because he’s his buddy. Melissa raises hers too, with a wry smile. Derek, predictably, just stands there and scowls.

“You should listen better,” Derek says, which is totally freaking rich coming from the King of Not Listening. “He’s saying you’re still human.”

Stiles throws a withering stare at him, mostly for old time’s sake. “Dude, I don’t have a shadow, and I start fires with _my mind_. Derek flinches a tiny bit at that, which makes Stiles feel like an asshole, but well, it’s true, and it’s not like he and Derek are really friends anyway. They don’t, like, bond over the whole dead family thing, either because Derek doesn’t really bond with people, or because he’d kind of win. Derek’s life is almost comically tragic. “I think ‘human’ went out the door, you know, WEEKS ago,” Stiles adds. “And I’m pretty sure it hit its ass on the way out.”

“Think so?” Deaton asks from behind him, and when Stiles looks up, he sees Deaton has nearly finished encircling him with a big ring of mountain ash, the sneaky bastard. “Only one way to find out.”

Stiles doesn’t want to find out.

Scott, unconcerned with Stiles’s strong preference for denial, jumps up and crosses the room before Deaton can close the circle. Then he stands there with a big, encouraging smile and his arms _actually outstretched_. “Come on, Stiles. Walk to me.”

“Dude. I am not a puppy.”

Scott only grins wider. “There’s a good boy! Come on!”

Stiles glares at him. “You always pick the worst times to grow a sense of humor, don’t you, Scotty?”

He scoots off the table and approaches the line hesitantly, taking a deep breath and steeling himself, because he can already tell that this isn’t going to work. He can feel the magic in the mountain ash in a way he couldn’t before, can sense the barrier around him, the power designed to keep dangerous things like him _in_. It’s not going to work, and Stiles doesn’t want to know that, not for sure –- but, well, it’s maybe true that denial hasn’t been working out too well for him the past couple of years and, anyway, he’s going to need to pee eventually. He drank a whole big Mountain Dew before his first big panic attack of the day, and he’s not sure how long ago that was now, but yeah, he’s going to need a trip to little boy’s room soon, so. That’s really all there is to it.

He takes another breath, holds it, and then steps over the ash. No problem.

Stiles pauses, blinking . . . and then lets out the biggest whoop he’s hollered since finding out he made first line in lacrosse. It’s not terribly dignified -- in fact, there may be some bouncing -- but he doesn’t care, not even a little. Scott grins and hugs him, and Melissa and Deaton offer him congratulations, and even Derek kind of smiles at him indulgently, although it probably breaks some small bone in his body to do so.

“Next time,” Derek says. “Maybe mention it if you think you’re going crazy again. Idiot.”

Stiles flips him off, but he’s still kind of grinning and bouncing, so it’s not exactly as antagonistic of a gesture as he might have hoped. Well, whatever. He’s human. That’s what matters. Admittedly, he’s a shadow-less human, and yeah, that seems like the kind of thing that’s going to eventually have consequences -- probably terrifying, painful, impossible-to-imagine consequences -- and also, he can start fires with his brain, which is kind of badass but also really freaking scary . . . but he’s still _him_. He’s still Stiles. _We’re still us_.

Oh. Right.

“So,” Stiles says. “About that whole plural-speak thing . . .”

“Maybe it’s some kind of emotional trauma?” Melissa asks quickly, and Stiles has to smile, because yeah, there’s no way anyone’s ever sounded so hopeful that he might _just_ be going through ‘emotional trauma’ before.

“Or it’s some kind of holdover from the Nogitsune,” Derek says, because he’s a gigantic buzzkill, a killer of buzzes, and all around total bastard.

“Actually,” Deaton says. “I don’t think it’s either of those things. I think this might actually be Stiles’s magic.”

Stiles blinks.

“Wait. Wait, you think -- you think _my magic_ is talking to me?”

“I think it’s trying to . . . fill the void,” Deaton says slowly. “And possibly not just from the Nogitsune, but also the darkness around your heart.”

Right. Because after all this, the Nemeton’s influence is still totally and forever going to be a thing. But. He just . . . he can’t . . . 

“My magic is _sentient_?”

“It’s . . . difficult to explain,” Deaton says.

Which probably means Deaton doesn’t have any idea. Or he does but just doesn’t want to explain it right now. Because of Reasons.

Well. At least some things never change.

#

Eventually, Stiles goes home with a shit ton of reading material that he stays up all night going over. Not that it tells him much -- he appears to be the only person in recorded history who has ever actually survived a Nogitsune possession, which, great. Doesn’t he feel _special_. There’s a little more about pyrokinetics, none of it terribly reassuring. Apparently, they have a tendency to accidentally burn their families alive. Awesome. And if he’s reading this right, the fire thing might only be the beginning of how his abilities manifest. Depending on just how ‘big’ his spark is, he could eventually display an aptitude for one or all of the following: precognition, telekinesis, levitation, weather manipulation, psychometry, aura-reading, and/or _summoning demons_.

Stiles doesn’t sleep at all that night. He figures it’s for the best.

He doesn’t sleep much the next night, either. He stays up doing research on the Internet . . . well. It starts out as research, subject-appropriate research even, but he gets a little bored after the sixty-fourth obviously false testimonial about so-and-so who can do all these miraculous things, and you can learn how to do them to, for a helpful donation of just two hundred dollars. Eventually, he just ends up following link after link on Wikipedia, and sure, he might not need to know about the history of cravats or the mating habits of crocodiles _now_ , but _someday_ this could be relevant. You know. Eventually. Anyway, if he’s up researching all night, then he doesn’t have time to sleep, and if he doesn’t have time to sleep, then he can’t dream about monsters, and if he can’t dream about monsters, maybe he won’t accidentally set half of Beacon Hills on fire. It’s practically foolproof. Everybody wins.

Lydia takes one look at him on Day 3 of Strategic Insomnia and forcibly drags him into the empty boys locker room.

“Is this going to be our new place for special bonding time?” Stiles asks. “Cause there are probably less fragrant places we can do that.”

“When was the last time you slept?” Lydia demands.

“Last night,” Stiles says, which is completely true. He fell asleep for forty minutes at his desk, and then jerked awake so suddenly that he fell over backwards in his chair. Eventually, he’s going to stop giving his dad panic attacks in the middle of the night.

Lydia, per _always_ , looks completely unimpressed with him.

“Stiles. This isn’t something you can run from. You have to learn to control it.”

“Oh, like you control your special banshee powers?" Stiles snaps, suddenly furious with her, with everything, even though it’s such a shitty thing to say; he _knows_ how insecure she can be when it comes to her weird magic stuff.

But Lydia just lifts her chin higher. “At least I’m trying.”

“You don’t think I’m trying?” Stiles asks, incredulous -- he’s shaking with it, his indignation, his sudden, seething rage. “I am trying. I’m _trying_!” She doesn’t even know, she has no idea, how hard he’s trying to hold it together, how sometime he feels like he’s flying apart, unraveling at the seams, and he just wants to let it happen; he just want to disappear --

“ _Stiles_ ,” Lydia says, possibly not for the first time.

Stiles opens his eyes -- when did he shut his eyes -- and sees the lockers around him are shaking where they stand. His skin is warm, hot even, and the air around him is shimmering, like a heat haze in the middle of the desert, like a mirage.

He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes again, curling his fingernails into his palm. No. No. He won’t do this, he won’t. He just has to calm down, change his breathing, hold his breath, let go. Let go, let go . . .

Stiles silently counts to ten and exhales. He opens his eyes.

The lockers have stopped moving. The mirage is gone, and his body, still trembling, is left exhausted and cold. Stiles drops to the ground and slumps a little sideways, tipping his head back until it thunks into the wall behind him.

Lydia sits next to him and takes his hand in her own.

“Well,” she says. “You didn’t actually set anything on fire. That’s good.”

He snorts. “Yeah. I’m super proud of myself today.”

Lydia Martin is not capable of a normal sigh. Her exasperation is a thing of legend -- she can, at any moment, express so many layers of boredom and impatience with just one quick rush of breath that all your long dead ancestors turn over in their graves under the weight of her displeasure. This is the sound she made years and years ago, when Stiles introduced himself and asked to borrow her purple crayon. This is the sound that made him fall instantly in love with her.

In retrospect, there may have always been something a little wrong with his brain.

“What you need,” Lydia says, punching him not at all gently in the shoulder, “is to find an anchor. Like the werewolves have, to keep themselves from eating people all the time.”

Stiles looks at her. Allison had been Scott’s anchor. Maybe --

She points a finger at him. “I’m not your anchor,” she says. "Not for this."

“I don’t know,” Stiles says. “You stopped my panic attack pretty cold before.” He frowns. “Hey, you didn’t kiss me this time. I mean -- no, not that I’m saying you _should_ have kissed me. That’s not what I -- cause I kind of freak out a lot, and that wouldn’t really be fair on you, having to -- I mean, what I’m saying is -- ”

“You didn’t need it,” Lydia says, interrupting him, which, _thank God_. “You had it under control.”

“Just so you know,” Stiles says. “I’m, like, never going to say no to therapeutic kissing. I mean, if that’s ever a thing you’re into.”

“Stiles. Stop talking.”

“Roger that,” Stiles says. 

But then because he’s tired, because he’s so, so tired, he whispers, “We’re sorry, Lydia.”

She leans into him. “We know.”


	4. Combustible

It starts to get a little better, after that.

Deaton gives him these meditations to do before he goes to bed, and Stiles doesn’t do a particularly good job at them because meditation and ADHD go together like peanut butter and _rat poison_ . . . but he keeps working at it regardless, and who knows, maybe time’s healing all wounds, or maybe just actively working to get better is helping him out somehow, because slowly, Stiles is starting to have less horrible, blood-filled nightmares than he used to. 

And when he does dream, at least, his mind mostly returns to places that are isolated at night, so the death toll remains at zero, with the exception of a gym locker and a possible squirrel or two. Which, he feels bad about that -- not about the locker, obviously, although the boys locker room has been such a prominent feature in his nightmares that the fire department now makes nightly checks at the high school for any disturbances, in order to ensure that all of BHHS doesn’t burn down -- but definitely for the squirrels cause, well, he likes squirrels, who wouldn’t like squirrels, right, and all their beady eyes and bushy tails and hyperactive squirrel antics? Stiles is well aware that if he were to turn into any kind of were-animal, personality-wise, he would be best suited to being a were-squirrel, which, emasculating but kind of the truth.

But the fires have been relatively small so far, and the very confused but otherwise competent fire department’s also been keeping tabs on the Preserve, and if a few of Stiles’s furry totem buddies have died, well. He just doesn’t have it in him to get too angsty about it right now. He’s already got, like, super massive mounds of guilt for all the actual people who are dead because of him, and that’s already so much -- he can’t deal with any more. If one more person dies because of him, if there’s one more person he can’t save, Stiles is pretty sure he’s gonna combust.

So, Stiles meditates. Badly, but he does. And during the day, he does his best to keep a firm handle on his emotions, which, okay, firm might be pushing it, but hey, it’s been a week and a half since his last aborted panic attack/temper tantrum with Lydia, and if he makes it to a full two weeks, he’s absolutely going to buy himself some Haagen Daaz and maybe a new flannel shirt. Also, the jerk who told everyone about Stiles’s mom, the one who seems bound and determined to fulfill the Douchebag King vacancy that’s been open since Jackson left for London, Stiles sees that guy picking on Jared, shoving him around, saying a bunch of awful shit. And Stiles feels the fire under his skin and thinks, _We don’t have to let him do this. We can stop this. We can stop it right now_ . . . but he doesn’t. Or he does -- he grabs Coach and has _him_ stop it, but Stiles doesn’t set the jerk on fire because that’s probably an overreaction to bullying. Also murder, and his dad would probably be pretty disappointed in him. Scott, too, come to think of it. But it makes Stiles feel good for a minute, that he could do something, that he has the kind of power.

It’s probably a bad thing. Stiles still counts his fingers -- maybe every other day now -- and he still has to occasionally remind himself _it’s okay, you’re okay, you’re a real boy now, Pinocchio_ \-- but he thinks it’s getting better, that HE is getting better, and that someday he might even be able to get a handle on the weird ass shitstorm his life has become.

And then Kate Argent makes her move, and it all goes to hell.

#

What happens is this: Kate kidnaps Scott, mostly to piss off Derek, and Kira, mostly because she’s always with Scott. Lydia does her whole ‘I hear people in the radio’ thing and realizes that Kate’s holding them at the Nemeton, because of course, why not, everything goes back to the fucking Nemeton. Stiles tries to come up with a plan, but Derek decides that he doesn’t need a plan because he’s Derek and also an _idiot_ , and every plan he’s ever had basically breaks down to ripping throats out with his teeth. 

So Stiles and Lydia are forced to run after him, plan-less, and then it turns out that Kate’s been torturing Scott and Kira for kicks, which is seriously damaging Stiles’s shaky and highly tenuous grasp on calm. Lydia realizes this, at least, because unlike their favorite claws-first, questions-later werewolf, she is absolutely _not_ an idiot -- but there’s just no time to try and talk him down or even offer a little therapeutic kissing. Instead, Stiles reminds himself to breathe as he and Lydia work on untying Kira and Scott, and for Christ’s sake, these are the most impossible knots in the whole world; how is he supposed to undo these things without a freaking sword --

Derek makes a sound.

Derek, who’s been fighting Super Strong Werejaguar Kate on his own, Derek makes a sound that’s just _wrong_ , a gasp that’s followed by something wet, something disturbingly like a gurgle. Stiles looks up from an only half-conscious Scott, and for a moment everything just . . . stops.

It’s like looking back in time, back to that day at the loft, when the twins forced Derek to hold out his claws, and Boyd . . . Boyd just sank straight into them. Only it’s Derek in the air this time, Derek who’s been impaled, and Kate, Kate is laughing, she’s flexing her fingers inside of him and _laughing_ , and Stiles already knows how this story ends. He knows -- Scott will blame himself, and Lydia will scream, and they’ll just keep going and going, going until they’re dead, until everyone’s dead.

Derek closes his eyes, and Kate drops him to the ground, and there is suddenly nothing in the whole world but heat and purpose. But _fury_.

Kate screams and screams, because that’s something you do when you’re suddenly and literally on fire. She screams and thrashes back and forth, like she’s trying to actually shake the flames out of her skin, and Stiles doesn’t care, he doesn’t; she’s not even the first person he’s set on fire, just the first person he’s set on fire with his mind. It doesn’t matter. Kate collapses, still burning, and Stiles doesn’t even bother looking at her anymore because he’s at Derek’s side now, he’s dropped to his knees, and Derek --

Derek is still. Derek is so fucking still. Stiles thinks --

No. Because -- no. Because it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t even matter that he and Derek aren’t really friends, that they’re friends of friends, antagonistic acquaintances who just happen to save each other’s lives from time to time -- it doesn’t matter because Allison and Aiden and Erica and Boyd and Heather and the squirrels and his mom, God, his _mom_ , he can’t --

“Stiles! _Stiles_!”

 _No. No. Someone has to pay for this, for Derek, for us. Someone has to BURN for this_.

“Stiles!” It’s Lydia, he thinks -- it’s hard to know for sure because he can’t see very much right now, just the fire, there’s so much fire, everywhere, everywhere fire. “Stiles, you have to stop this. You can stop this. You have. To find. Your anchor!”

But he can’t, he can’t, he doesn’t have an anchor -- there’s nothing but an empty space where his shadow should be, a void left by a psychotic fox, a permanent darkness encircling his heart. Everyone he knows is going to die, just like everyone who’s already died, everyone that he’s failed to save – all his friends are just dead bodies, waiting to be found.

There is darkness, and there is fury, and it’s better, Stiles thinks, to lose himself to the fury, to drift through the flame until there is nothing, nothing but ash.

“Stiles, man, look at me.” Scott this time, and it’s good -- it’s good to know that he’s still alive, that he’s healing, even if none of it matters. “Come on, Stiles, please. Open your eyes. You’ve got to open your eyes for me.” He sounds scared, desperate even, and there’s some part of Stiles that wants to listen to him, but -- it’s all too loud now. His magic is burning inside of him, so hot, too hot, and he wonders if maybe his skin is on fire. It feels like it.

Scott’s still talking, but the words don’t make sense anymore; it’s all just noise, buzzing, insignificant -- Stiles is probably only getting one word out of every five.

 _Think . . . Dad . . . breathe . . . anchor_ . . .

Dad’s his anchor. Of course, of _course_ Dad’s his anchor. Dad has always been his anchor. But Dad’s not here, and Stiles can’t, he CAN’T --

“Mieczyslaw.”

Stiles opens his eyes.

It’s not really him, Stiles knows. On some level, he knows, but he really needs his dad right now, so . . . there he is, like always, kneeling on the grass in front of Stiles, taking slow breaths, knowing just what to do.

But Jesus, the grass is on fire. Everything, it’s all on fire, circling around him and Derek, around his friends, around . . . . God, _everything_ . . .

“Hey,” Dad says, Imaginary Dad says. “Look at me, kid. Don’t look at that. You look here. Right at me.”

Stiles looks at him and struggles to think.

“I need you to breathe with me, Stiles. Okay? We’re going to breathe together, starting right now. Okay? Breathe in.”

Dad inhales and Stiles does too. It’s jerky and uneven, but it’s air in his lungs that wasn’t there before, so he does it again, and again. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

He tries not to think about the rage burning through his skin, tries not to think about Derek cold and dead lying right beside him. He thinks about his dad, about the days just after Mom died, when Stiles would wake up crying and Dad was always there, holding him, talking him down. “We’re going to be okay,” Dad would always say. “We’re gonna make this work. I swear to God, Stiles. We’re gonna make it work.” And sometimes Dad was drunk when he said it, sometimes _he_ was the one crying, but he just kept on saying it until they both believed it. “We can do this. We can do it.”

 _We can do this_ Dad says, Stiles says, his magic says. _We can do this, Stiles. We can. We CAN_.

Stiles closes his eyes and takes another long, shuddering breath, and when he opens his eyes again, the fire has gone out. Imaginary Dad is gone, which is okay, since he wasn’t really there in the first place. And Lydia, Scott, and Kira are all okay -- Kira’s still unconscious, and Scott and Lydia are both crying, but hey, they’re all alive, he didn’t kill them, and that’s what matters.

It’s important to keep focusing on those positives, right? Just keep on trucking.

“Think I found an anchor,” Stiles mumbles, or tries to. The words come out soupy and slurred. His arms are trembling, his whole body is, and it just wants to give up, give out --

He lets it.

#

Stiles wakes up on an exam table in the veterinary clinic. Which, great. He should probably just start carrying a lint roller around with him wherever he goes. He’s pretty sure it’s Scott’s job to clean these tables, but for an Alpha werewolf with heightened senses, he does a spectacularly crappy job at it. They should talk about that sometime, when things are calmer, after Stiles actually makes two weeks without an Incident, and oh God, after Derek’s funeral, oh --

Hey.

There’s a body on the table next to him, Derek’s body, and it’s . . . he’s _alive_.

Stiles sits up so abruptly that he nearly falls off the table, unprepared for the massive headrush that has apparently been patiently waiting to greet him. He grips the sides of the cold steel and stares at Derek, who’s pale, unconscious, but definitely breathing.

“He’s going to be fine,” Deaton says from _out of nowhere_ , and this time Stiles does fall off the table. Deaton helps him back up, though, and gives him a bottle of water to drink. “I’ll admit, it was pretty touch and go there, for a while, but Derek will pull through.” Deaton’s smile is equal parts exasperated and fond. “He always does.”

“What about everyone else?” Stiles asks. “Everyone’s okay, right? They were -- but I didn’t -- I didn’t -- ”

“Everyone’s fine,” Deaton assures him. “I made them all go home a couple of hours ago. It’s almost four in the morning, you know.” And oh yeah, there’s definitely reproach there.

“I’ll try to have my next pyrokinetic episode during working hours, promise,” Stiles says. He swallows, and it hurts a little. “Uh. Kate?”

Deaton hesitates. “She tried to kill Derek. She would have killed us all.”

“So, she’s definitely dead then,” Stiles says. “I killed her.”

Deaton watches him for a minute and finally nods. “She’s dead.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He feels vaguely numb about the whole thing, and he thinks maybe he ought to feel worse. Scott would probably feel worse, but . . . he’s not Scott. “Okay.”

Stiles drinks his water and tries not to think too much.

“I hear you found an anchor,” Deaton says finally.

Stiles looks up. “Where is he? My dad, has anyone called him, is he -- ”

“He’s out in the waiting room,” Deaton says. “I think he finally fell asleep half an hour ago.”

Stiles jumps up and immediately sways on his feet. Deaton steadies him. “Slowly.”

Stiles maybe kind of ignores him because, really, he’s never taken anything slowly in his whole life. He sort of skids out into the waiting room and, yup, his dad is seriously sacked out, his neck at some horribly awkward angle that makes Stiles hurt just looking at him. He’s going to be sore as hell if he sleeps like that all night, but . . . Stiles just doesn’t have the heart to wake him, and he sure as hell can’t drive Dad home by himself. He’s so exhausted he can barely see straight. Not ideal conditions for operating heavy machinery.

Stiles sinks into the chair next to his dad and curls up as best he can, leaning into his father’s chest. Dad murmurs something under his breath and, without ever fully waking up, drapes one of his arms loosely over Stiles’s back, holding him close.

“We’re going to be okay,” Stiles whispers. And he isn’t entirely sure if he means that yet, because there’s still so much he doesn’t know -- like, seriously, there has to be ramifications for not casting a shadow, right, and there’s still a darkness around his heart, and there are always, always going to be more bad guys. Death is always going to come around, hovering nearby, looking for them.

But it didn’t find them, not any of them, not today.

Stiles falls asleep, face pressed into his father’s shirt, and -- for once -- doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it, at least for now. I might write a sequel at some point, especially if there's interest -- but I have so many other TW ideas running through my head too. Seriously, this show. Eating my BRAIN.


End file.
